I became interested in Water Resources
Engineering in Fall 2016 when I took Dr. Binning’s Hydraulics course and lab. I
became further interested when I took Dr. Ferreira’s Water Resources
Engineering Course in Spring 2017. At the end of the semester with Dr. Ferreira
I sat down to discuss with him what career paths Water Resources Engineering
Could lead me down. Shortly after this conversation he gave me a job in his
research. After three years of Civil Engineering prerequisities and coursework
I have finally decided to pursue a subset of the field on a more long-term
basis.
Over the summer, in the lab, I have been
working to maintain and deploy all equipment in the lab. A lot of my work is
assisting the graduate students with their research. Although I do not conduct
any concrete research myself I have witnessed first hand the full process of data
gathering and processing. Through my work I have been to Magothy Bay on the
Eastern Shore twice this summer to program and deploy two Aquadopp velocity
sensors, twelve HOBO water level loggers, TruBlue wave sensors, and a real time
meteorological weather station. I did research on weather stations and ordered,
programmed, and built the one that we have. I also organized a scouting trip
down the Potomac to view field sites for potential locations. I obtained
permits for three different sites then organized a trip down the Potomac to
install water level loggers with the graduate students. Mostly what I have
learned this Summer is project management skills in the Water Resources
Research arena.
My main takeaway from this summer was that I
gained a large amount of technical experience in the field of sensors. Prior to
graduating I plan to develop my own sensor units complete with microcontroller,
battery, solar panel, satellite modem, and sensors. I will make these at a
fraction of the cost that we pay a company to make them. This will allow me to
communicate more effectively with technical engineers as I further pursue my
career in Water Resources Engineering
